Category Archives: Music / Lyrics

I’ve given coverage to the local music stream Music Tampa Bay, which is available on the radio dial in the St. Pete area, a few times. I’ve highlighted musicians that have made it to the station’s annual Top 100 list, I’ve made mention of volunteer jobs (and the station can regularly use volunteers). Let me give you another little blog mention of the station, something that’s a constant need but not necessarily refilled often: Donations.

Music Tampa Bay has a GoFundMe page right now with a very low goal of $300 to start. They summarize the station more-so than explain the financial needs… Yet a single word in that summary makes it clear why they could use some aid of the monetary variety: Non-profit. While the station is streaming on the web and broadcasting ont he FM dial, it’s not a commercial station and it’s got costs to cover to pump out music — original content — from Tampa Bay area musicians.

The donation drive doesn’t seem to be getting much exposure, nor contributions. The station has only taken in $25 in three donations made in three months from what the GoFundMe page shows.

If you’re a listener, you wouldn’t be wrong to chip in a little something. If you’re a Tampa Bay musical artist who has had content aired on the station, you wouldn’t be wrong to support the station as a token of appreciation toward them for helping expose the music you’ve made.

If you’re an indie musical artist or even one under a label and looking for exposure, you may see Radio Airplay, which powers the Jango music streaming service, as an option. Indeed, it is an option to get heard around the world by music listeners who listen to stations aligned with specific performing artists that you align your own music with.

As a legit means of service, though, you have to pay. Oh, do you have to pay…

Due to server issues created by me over-doing music embeds and such, I’m going to have to repost the Top 100 lists of songs from Music Tampa Bay’s top 100 for 2017 & 2008.

Originally, the lists (which are both divided into several parts) worked okay and everyone had access, but it would seem my hosting company has tightened standards on the shared-server hosting system.

When the lists are reposted, they’ll simply be a text-and-link based list, a-la the 2016 Top 100 list.

UPDATE June 19, 2018: Both the Music Tampa Bay 2008 and 2017 Top 100 lists are now operational again. It required some changes to this web site on eh back end but things are working at the moment. All media that could be found was linked to while we sites or social media accounts representing the musical groups (that could be found) were also linked to.

Do you ever get a television theme song in your head? Y’know, earworm type deal? Yet you go further, looking at the lyrics, and suddenly they take a new weight to them or just seem fitting for the moment in time that you (or life around you) are in? That’s my morning… Continue reading →

In 2005, I penned a blog post that was inspired by the then-St. Petersburg Times had written an epic feature regarding the days of Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, had spent living in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. Being a Morrison fan and living only a handful of miles away from locations mentioned in the piece, I was blown away. I had known about Morrison having been born in south Florida but I didn’t know about this.

Part of what inspired the blog post was the fact social media wasn’t then what it is today. Not that writing a blog post was going to necessarily draw eyeballs. Yet to this day, Missing piece of history – Jim Morrison in Clearwater still draws web traffic because of Morrison’s romantic interest (and song inspiration) Mary Werbelow.

At any rate, to get to the point, the now- Tampa Bay Times has basically failed with how they treat their archives online, which now hides the articles on a for-profit site (…unless the Times plans to fix their “Page Not Found” issues on archival articles). Between this and my old blog post failure in being more direct and obvious on the link to the feature section from September 25, 2005, finding the feature reading is next to impossible.

I’ve assembled a playlist on YouTubbe (and I may try to copy it at Spotify but no guarantees on that) of songs that I’ve heard from various artists through various sources that I consider “soft rock”. They’re not all rock songs, they’re not all adult contemporary, and they’re from a mix of years within the 21st century (not all recent releases but mot are from the past decade).

One thing is for sure though: They’re underexposed numbers that will likely never explode in popularity. Independent artists don’t get that kind of exposure from the mainstream media or at least it rarely happens. Yet, that’s a truth for all music out there — even if people catch your tunes on the radio or at a live show, there’s only a chance that it’ll click with them and gain an ounce of popularity.

The underexposed soft rock playlist has only 29 songs at the moment but my intention is to keep growing the list as time goes by. It just depends on when and where I cross the music and if I feel it fits or not. Mind you, it’s the arrangements that make me add the songs to the list. The lyrics may or may not fit.

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If you’re a performing artist and have a song that you think might fit in, or if you’re a listener who knows of a song by a small-time act that doesn’t exactly have a huge audience checking out one of these lighter songs, you’re welcome to contact me through the site form with a link to the song’s YouTube page. I can’t guarantee submissions will get added, but it’s worth a shot.

I also suggest to artists to consider submitting their music to Lonely Oak Radio, it’s the most straight-forward indie music submission site. It’s not Pandora or Spotify in open-listener popularity but it is a unique mix of songs from various artists out there.

Update May 11, 2018:
I’ve been made aware by Europeans that not all tracks on this playlist are accessible.. While this playlist is crafted by an American with access to everything, I have no control over what is not accessible for those overseas. It may put more weight on me trying to re-create this playlist on another platform (Spotify).

update May 13th 2018:The Spotify Version of the playlist is now up. Not all of the songs are on the list and not all of the songs are able to be added (such as Grease Fire by the Pretty Voices or Arms Around It by Ricky Wilcox) because those tracks aren’t on Spotify. Others aren’t included because I haven’t gotten to them yet, but they will be added and likely others.

There are many indie bands out there that never went anywhere, such as Desk. You’ve never heard of Desk (unless you got to this blog post by directly searching for the band, in which case I say “Hi!” ☺) and shouldn’t have at this point – the group called it quits a few months after releasing the album All-American Awesome.

Yet there’s something relevant at the moment off of an album that was produced in 2016 and released in May of that year. Something that American society or specifically the politically inclined may or may take interest in. Oh, and rock music fans – I can’t forget rock fans.

I crossed track #6 from the group’s 7-track album while listening to indie radio station Lonely Oak Radio. The title alone seemed timely and came off as a word of protest: “The Great American Stupid”.

A song released before the 2016 Federal Elections that’s fitting in 2018? Indeed. The song is aimed at the Dotard in Covfefe, now-President Donald Trump. The lyrics (which are posted on the group’s Bandcamp listing of the song) are below.

There are likely more noteworthy protest songs out there by indie groups… How far the tunes go depends on how well the number is put together and how much effort is put into exposure. In Desk’s case, not much was done but it is out there.

As a long time blogger, I know about the strengths of networking and how it can lead to higher exposure as well as socializing and making connections in the field you write in. It’s part of why I’m considered a pioneer in hockey blogging – it’s not just that I started blogging and stuck around but also by way of connecting with fellow writers and working in coordination with them in one way or another, along with simply being in contact and socializing with them.

The idea of SongBay as a social platform and market site for music at the very base of operations – lyrics, musical arrangements, demos – seems like a good place to actually try to take something you’ve done creatively and pass it into the industry in one form or another to performers or producers.

Yet here I sit, mere weeks after joining the site and what I’ve encountered amounts to crickets.

I’m trying a new avenue, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve long had poetry and lyrical verse posted online, but I’ve never really pushed myself into music. Oh, sure, I’ve had my hand in helping to promote the indie rock group the Pretty Voices, but besides that? Okay, okay, blogging about music and promoting other small time artists, but I’m not talking that irght now.

I signed up for an account on Songbay, a social media-like business entity for the music industry. It’s based in the United Kingdom but it’s basically entities in the field looking to create music or acquire music for the sake of creation on their labels and with their performing artists.

While I’ve had potential musical content here on my site for ages — lyrics — it hasn’t led to anything. Being on SongBay is trying to be more direct. It doesn’t mean I’ll get anywhere or truly draw interest, but I’m taking that chance something could happen.

This doesn’t mean I’m committing to a career in music or anything; I just write song lyrics for God’s sake! I’m just trying something out. I’m still “available” in my rambling, inconsistent, progress, smart-ass ways for one thing or another.